9 Digital Marketing Myths to Forget in 2017

Digital marketing is a very broad term, covering SEO, PPC, content marketing, social media and much more. And with this, comes many myths that the general public and business owners will share.

But does that mean all these digital marketing myths are true? Not necessarily. Here we go through some of the myths people mention concerning digital marketing, and discuss why they might not be so true after all.

1. Boring industries can’t benefit from digital marketing

Whatever niche your business is in, you will have a set of targeted customers that will be online somewhere. It’s a matter of finding where is the best place to find and convert these customers.

Your industry, product or service doesn’t have to be incredibly exciting in order to benefit from marketing online. Many customers will be searching for a product like yours, and it’s simply a matter of putting your offering in front of the right people.

2. SEO is no longer important

Many people like to proclaim that SEO is dead, due to the fact Google has changed the way it ranks websites radically over the past few years.

The real truth is that SEO is very much alive, and has never been more important. Google has simply done away with the old spammy SEO techniques of yesterday, such as buying links and otherwise. Nowadays, people say you can’t outwit Google. While that’s true, SEO has evolved into essentially providing quality content that customers find informational or enjoyable. This is at the heart of modern SEO.

Search engines are more popular than ever, and are used extensively by anyone looking for extra information on products, services or particular brands.

That’s why SEO is still important, as it plays a huge part in ensuring your brand is visible in the search results when someone is looking for a product or service just like yours.

3. A blog wouldn’t help my business

Whatever your business niche, industry or product, you can (and probably should) be writing content.

Even if your product is very simple, or difficult to write about, think about what your target audience may be searching for online.

Would they be looking for tips on certain problems? Maybe guides or how-tos? Maybe product recommendations? You can write short or long-form content on your blog in order to help your overall rankings, as well as attracting new customers.

4. Digital marketing only works with huge amounts of traffic

Not true, as quality traffic always trumps a large volume of traffic. If you’re attracting the right customers, then your digital marketing is working. If you’re attracting lots, but the wrong audience, then it’s usually not quite as viable.

However many visitors you attract to your website on a monthly basis, the key is attracting the right kind of people through targeted marketing, who are looking for what you have to offer.

5. A website is enough digital marketing

Maybe when the internet started becoming a thing, a website was enough. And this was largely down to no-one having a business. Nowadays everyone has a website, and so it’s become essential to market yours to stay ahead of the competition.

The digital marketing landscape has evolved radically over the last few years alone, and to stay ahead of the curve you need content that’s updated fairly consistently, and adheres to modern day platforms.

If your website looks old, it can be a deal breaker, or if it’s not mobile-friendly. But your information should be up-to-date on the site, too. And you need to market your website to get the right kind of visitors and gain results. Otherwise your website will remain stagnant and may not attract any website visitors.

6. Digital marketing brings overnight success

Some methods can help you gain short-term effects, such as AdWords PPC ads in the search results, or perhaps even Facebook ads. But even then, you can create ads for the long-burn.

But other forms of digital marketing generally take time. Content marketing takes time for content to rank on Google, and for links to be built, and for people to share it online. SEO also takes time in helping your website rank. Conversion rate optimisation takes time in order to assess what works to get the best results once customers are on your website. Social media marketing also takes time in order to consistent generate good content and push it out to the masses, and to build a following. What is true, is that together, it is all very much worthwhile, and can build a great long-term presence online for your brand.

7. I need vast quantities of content for content marketing to work

Not true. While having more content can certainly help, it’s definitely more worthwhile to have a smaller amount of quality content, than a vast pile of content no-one finds helpful.

If Google can see no-one is spending much time reading or engaging with your content, it’s not going to rank. But high quality, informative content means customers will spend more time reading, and potentially sharing it.

So yes, you can only post one blog post a month, and see the effects. This is better than posting 4 posts of drivel a month. But if you can produce 4 posts of quality, then this is even better.

8. I need to be on every single social media platform

Social media has become a giant in how we interact with each other and brands on a daily basis, but that doesn’t mean you should be on every platform.

If you’re a B2B business, perhaps you would succeed best on LinkedIn. It’s very unlikely you’d reap the same results from LinkedIn and Pinterest, for example. So there’s no need to maintain a presence on Pinterest, and you should focus more time on the channels that work.

9. No-one reads email marketing

While email may seem dated next to social media, it’s still one of the best ways to interact on a one-to-one basis with your customers.

Most important things come via email, such as bills or bank updates. So people do check their inboxes. And if you can cut through the noise, and offer something they can’t resist taking a peek at, then you’re sure to reap results.